Hitting rock bottom can be one of the most beautiful and life altering things we will ever endure. Throughout our lives, we can hit rock bottom a number of times in many different ways. For each of us, this will look very different.
It's in these moments we have choice to make. We can use "hitting rock bottom" as a weight to prevent us from moving forward, or we can use it as a means to build a new foundation – for something great. Every hurdle we endure is also a stepping stone, an eve of something beautiful to occur, if we allow it to be. If we choose to embrace it.
Mark Twain once said "Never let your education get in the way of your learning." How true is that, really? We are always learning and embracing new obstacles, new change. What's truly astounding is that as we move through life the ability to embrace change is ongoing. When we stop embracing change, in a way, we stop living.
Often we get used to our comfort zones, and then it is difficult to embrace change without resistance of some kind. We do not want to give up what we have become accustomed to. During these times we often call upon negative experiences as a means to avoid embracing any form of new change. It's during this time we must make peace with out past in order to keep moving forward. So often people like myself who stutter find themselves in this predicament, or as what I like to refer to as the "uncomfortable comfortable."
It's not until we can truly make that decision to move forward that we can embrace the new experiences. There's a reason the rear view mirror on a car is smaller than the windshield. What's behind us is so insignificant, and the view ahead is so large. It's the ability to look ahead that prevents the smaller view of the past inhibit what's in front of us. For in doing this we encompass growth and learning in all retrospects, and we use the foundation of the rock bottom to build the new.
Rich Lutman lives in Stratford. He is on the CSA Board of Directors.